Cricket, Hockey,
Football, Badminton, Kabbadi and Tennis
– wondering what connects – Premier Leagues. In 2008 Indian Premier League
followed European Soccer league and proved to be resounding success. Tennis and Soccer players earn much more than most other
sporting disciplines – Indian kabbadi team may not collective earn part of
individual earning of players – yet there is a money spinning league floated
around !
Can you imagine best players descending at Manila to play in a glitzy
brand-new exhibition tournament – and that list includes - Novak Djokovic ,
Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova ….. it is IPTL -
which goes until Dec. 13, is a round-robin tournament across four cities,
consisting of four teams: the Manila Mavericks, the Singapore Slammers, the
Indian Aces, and the UAE Royals. The star players are distributed across the
four teams— Andy Murray and Sharapova are on the same side.
Teams play five sets: a
men’s singles, a women’s singles, a men’s doubles, a mixed doubles, and a
legends match, featuring people like Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. Sets are
won by being the first to six games, but rather than the set continuing if it’s
a 5-5 tie, there’s instead a five-minute timed face-off to decide the set.
The IPTL [International Premier Tennis League] will be hugely lucrative for the tennis
players. The downside is it leaves no rest for players
who of course are willing to encash that rest.
The IPTL brings together current
champions, tennis legends and upcoming talent in a format that’s never been
seen before. Over 80 players participated in the official draft held in March, 2014 in Dubai, drawn by the League’s
innovative and competitive format. A total of 29 players were added to the 4
franchise teams – The Philippines, Singapore, India and the UAE. From 28th November to 13th December, 2014,
the teams will play a total of 24 matches in a round robin format to determine
the inaugural IPTL League Champion. The
Managing director is Mahesh Bhupathi.
The format is slightly
tampered in tune with round robin leagues.
Each match features 5 sets (Men / Women Singles / Mixed doubles / Men’s
doubles and Men’s legends singles). Each
set is played first to six games with a 5 minute shoot-out, if 5 all. Each game won counts as 1 point. The team
that wins the most games, accumulated from all five sets, wins the match. If a
match is tied after five sets, the Super Shoot-out determines the match winner.
At the start of each match,
a coin toss decides which team serves first, in the first set of each match. The
team that served last in the last game/Shoot-out of the previous set will
automatically be the receiver in the next set. There is a shot clock that manages the time between points, shoot-out, change overs,
time outs - can be set, stopped and
re-started only by the Chair Umpire.
Then there is the ‘power point’
where the receiving player can
call Power Point once every set,
indicating that the next point counts double.
The International Premier
Tennis League (IPTL) is sponsored by Coca-cola and is officially the Coca-Cola
International Premier Tennis League. Cricket
legend Sachin Tendulkar was to be the
original franchise owner with a plan to play home matches in Mumbai, now the
present owner Micromax has the games played at Delhi. The Teams in the fray are : Manila Mavericks, UAE
Royals, Indian Aces and Singapore Slammers.
The Indian Aces has : Roger Federer & Pete Samparas (Icon players);
Gaël Monfils; Fabrice Santoro, Rohan
Bopanna ; Ana Ivanovic & Sania Mirza. A day before, Indian Aces notched up their
third win on the trot with a 28-20 victory over UAE Royals in the battle of two
unbeaten sides and topped the table
after the Manila leg to emerge early front-runner in the high-profile
tournament. More to happen….
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
1st Dec 2014
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